US President Barak Obama took to three former enemy targets in Asia this
year.

His mission in Vietnam was to sell “lethal weapons”. This
comes after a 50 year embargo of selling it weapons, and after the US
weapons industry had scored billions selling death tools to its government
so that it could conduct the un-provoked war (1960-75). The cost in human
lives: between 1.5 and 3.9 three million Vietnamese and 58,000 US aggressors.

In return for this generous offer, the Vietnamese government commits itself
to drop its Russian-built MIG-21 jet fighters and buy US-made F-16s. And
The Man didn’t even have to apologize for previous White House custodians’
mass murder.

Japan was next on Obama’s marketing list. He even dared stop
at Hiroshima where he didn’t apologize either. He simply said
that “artefacts tell us that violent conflict appeared with the
very first man.”

The Man began his speech thusly:

“Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death
fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a
wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed
the means to destroy itself.”

“We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese
men, women and children, thousands of Koreans, a dozen Americans held
prisoner.”

“We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that
terrible war and the wars that came before and the wars that would follow.”

“Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering. But we have a
shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask
what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.”

“We must change our mind-set about war itself. To prevent conflict
through diplomacy and strive to end conflicts after they’ve begun.”

Go Tell It On The Mountain! On the mountains of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya,
Russia….

Then The Man took the historic step of becoming the first sitting US
president to visit Laos. Hallelujah! He didn’t apologize here
either but he made concessive remarks, something like there were “sufferings
and sacrifices on all sides of the conflict.”

“Conflict”! That is to say, the giant invaded the little
land of Laos, 2.6 million people at the time, because the US had already
invaded its larger neighbour, Vietnam, 35 million at the time. Americans
had to do this, because Vietnam’s politics and social welfare-based
economy was subversive and “regime change” was necessary.

The US dropped more bombs on this small country than it did on the
Axis countries during WW11—270 million tons (many of them “mother”/
cluster bombs). The slim man in the white house came offering funds
to help remove some of the unexploded bombs in Laos’ earth that
40 years later still kill thousands of people, especially playful children.

While on his mission, the elegant spokesperson for peace spoke of US
containment concerning Asian “regional issues”, and had
the felicitous gall to challenge China with this egalitarian message:

“Every nation matters. Bigger nations should not dictate
to smaller ones, and all nations should play by the same rules.”

No lie. The graceful hypocrite said THAT while announcing that the
United States of America will increase its military presence in the
geographical area where lay China.

In 1823, the congress legalized, the “Monroe Doctrine”
as part of Manifest Destiny: hands off the US’s backyard, Latin
America.

Of the thousands of times that US military force has been used against
scores of countries, many have been subjected several times. Cuba has
been attacked 12 times since 1814; Nicaragua 12 times since 1853; Panama
on 13 occasions since 1856. Although Latin America has been the most
targeted, China has been attacked 30 times, from 1843 “gunboat
diplomacy” to 1999 when the US bombed its embassy in Yugoslavia.
In 1933, the pensioner Marine Corp Major-General Smedley Butler explained
how war is a racket.

“I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military
service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the
Marine Corps... And during that period, I spent most of my time being
a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the
Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

“I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American
oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for
the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the
raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of
Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua
for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912.
I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests
in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way
unmolested.”